However, unlike many other ancient secondary sources, Diogenes Laërtius generally reports philosophical teachings without attempting to reinterpret or expand on them, which means his accounts are often closer to the primary sources. He also frequently focuses on trivial or insignificant details of his subjects' lives while ignoring important details of their philosophical teachings and he sometimes fails to distinguish between earlier and later teachings of specific philosophical schools. His reputation is controversial among scholars because he often repeats information from his sources without critically evaluating it.
Nothing is definitively known about his life, but his surviving Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers is a principal source for the history of ancient Greek philosophy. 3rd century AD) was a biographer of the Greek philosophers. For other people named Diogenes, see Diogenes (disambiguation).ĭiogenes Laërtius ( / d aɪ ˌ ɒ dʒ ɪ n iː z l eɪ ˈ ɜːr ʃ i ə s/ dy- OJ-in-eez lay- UR-shee-əs Greek: Διογένης Λαέρτιος, Laertios fl.
